Vidding Workshop!

[chaila]

Welcome to the wiscon_vidparty vidding workshop! We hope this will be a chance for new or potential vidders to find out more about what’s involved in making a vid and to see the wide variety of ways vidders make vids, and for vidders of all skill levels to discuss vidding and share tips and ideas. Everyone is welcome to participate!

This workshop will be discussion- and question-based, so please, start or jump into any discussions you want to have and ask any questions about any aspect of vidding! Finding ideas, getting source, clipping (or not), editing programs, codecs, rendering, effects, specific technical issues you’re having, discussion about specific vids, discussing your own ideas, links to useful resources, tutorials, cheerleading--any and all vidding related topics are welcome.

We’ve created a few categories to keep some of the major topic threads organized. If you have a comment or question or want to start a discussion on a certain topic, just comment below the relevant subject. (We’re flexible though, so don’t fret too much about getting things in the right place. If in doubt, just give your thread a descriptive subject line so people can find it).

Feel free to add new threads if what you want to talk about isn't covered by the categories, but please give your comment a descriptive subject line so readers can tell what’s being discussed.

We have several awesome vidders who have volunteered to participate and introduce themselves at their convenience. We will be linking to their introductions as they appear. Keep an eye out and feel free to ask them specific questions!

Topics (to get you started--add your own threads and subthreads!)

• Vid Idea Development -- Finding and developing ideas for new vids

• Tech Questions -- Hardware and software (PC, Mac or Linux), codecs, aspect ratios, exporting and rendering, effects, etc.
          Questions asked/discussed:
          -- Software to use on a PC? (including discussion of Windows Movie Maker & Lightworks)
          -- Vidding with iMovie09?
          -- Codec rec: Avid DNxHD
          -- Converter recs for Macs?
          -- Linux clipping?

• Getting Started (and Finished) -- From beginning to end, how do you make a vid? Getting source, clipping, editing workflows, tips for getting started, etc.
          • Subthread: Editing workflows/processes
                --chaila (VirtualDub, Vegas, Zarx264gui)
                --heresluck (DVD Decrypter, DGIndex, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --thingswithwings (Handbrake, Mac the Ripper, MPEG Streamclip, Final Cut Pro, Sound Studio)
                --ghost_lingering (Adobe Premiere & AfterEffects, Mac the Ripper, and mpeg streamclip)
                --eruthros (DVD Decrypter, VirtualDub, AvsPmod, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --such_heights (Switch, audio editing/conversion, Final Cut)
                --beccatoria (avidemux, Cinelerra)

          • Other questions/discussion
           -- How to time clips to the beat?
           -- Using markers
           -- Approaching editing/revising? & how to deal with ambition outstripping effects/transition knowledge?
           -- Free/cheap editing software for Macs?
           -- Ripping DVDs vs. downloaded source?
           -- Note re: codecs & compression

• Links and References -- Link helpful resources from elsewhere on the internet.
          -- Various lists of resources, including subtitling
          -- Mac vidders: how to get the shiniest source
          -- Lots of links, especially about vidding creativity
          -- Panel notes on song choice
          -- A&E's Technical Guide to All Things Audio and Video
          -- Audio editing
          -- Multiple aspect ratio tutorials
          -- Understanding codecs & containers, & Autodesk software for students

• VIDDING SQUEE - All things happy, fun, and inspiring.
          • The first vid you made you're still proud of?
          • Vids/vidders that inspired us!

Meet the Vidder Threads

• Meet the Vidder: Rhi
• Meet the Vidder: metatxt
• Meet the Vidder: such heights
• Meet the Vidder: kiki_miserychic
• Meet the Vidder: Garrideb
• Meet the Vidder: ghost lingering
• Meet the Vidder: here's luck
• Meet the Vidder: chaila

ETA 3/3/14: The main part of the workshop has concluded, but please feel free to add answers or info if you've got them! We've organized a list of the threads, questions and answers for ease of browsing. And don't forget that you can sign up to be a vidding mentor to a newer vidder, or sign up to get a mentor!

Comments

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

[d_generate_girl]

Vidders, how do you approach editing a vid? I tend to get very attached to my first draft and quail at messing up clip order and choice. I also think my ambition outstrips my knowledge of exactly how to achieve effects (transitions, credits, etc). Any tips for knowing when a vid is "done" and/or how to figure out when effects are appropriate or how to accomplish them?

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

[chaila]

I think the best thing is: get a beta, particularly someone you feel comfortable with, if you can. You don't necessarily have to listen to a beta's suggestions, but I've found that it's invaluable for me to have a beta say "this is what this vid says to me" or "this part was confusing." It can be really hard to hear if it's not what *I* thought the vid was saying or if I'm really attached to that part, but I usually sit with the beta comments for awhile, brood about it, and then come back with excited ideas about how to fix it. Now I find I get *more* excited about revising, about being full of ideas about making things even better and how to address problems that a beta pointed out. Sometimes what helps me is to not work on the vid for a little while when I know it's time to make big revisions--a few days at least or even weeks, depending--and then come back to it with fresh eyes and new motivation.

I have less input on the question about effects though, as I feel very much the same: I don't even think about adding most effects, because I don't think of adding things I don't even know how to do. I do watch a lot of vids though, which widens my ideas about what's possible, in terms of effects? And I'll go ahead and ask someone how they did X, if it looked neat? And then someday I may end up including something like it in a vid.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

[metatxt]

In my experience, effects can seem really overwhelming when you don't know how to do them because it's hard to see the process behind them. Then they all get grouped up into this massive term "effects" and there's no way to differentiate what you're trying to learn. -- so, I think the key with any kind of effect is to learn how to identify what it is doing and it's proper name (if any). If the effect has a name, you have a direction! (Of course, in forums, you can always point to a clip of the video itself and say -- hey that thing at 1:15 how do you do that?)

Also, this is where learning general editing terminology can be helpful! The transition every vidder learns first is a jump cut. Another common and more subtle transition is a cross-fade or dissolve, whereas an easy but more jarring transition is a wipe. Even the more complicated transitions are often made up of simpler components. If you know the name, you can say -- hey how do I use X program to make a dissolve? yknow?

A few strategies for dealing with the familiar problem of ambition outstripping knowledge:

1. Storyboards and Placeholders. draw out or describe what you want to achieve and where it fits in the timeline. or put a placeholder in your timeline. then you have a manageable, finite period of time you're trying to fill and a finite skill you need to gain. You can vid around that block of time while you look for tutorials or other vidders who can tell you how to make that effect happen.

2. Work on two vids at once. One vid is your "I can do this and finish a vid" project that you have 80% of the skills for. The other vid is your ambitious, I want to make this vid and I'm not sure how to get from point A to point B vid. Really break down the concepts and techniques you want to learn for your ambitious vid into smaller pieces. Then get even more specific. Accomplishing smaller or more approachable projects helps cement your confidence in the knowledge you do have and makes it less scary to look for that one tutorial you need to make credits. Because I guarantee, the skills you have for a more approachable project you will also use in your more ambitious project.

3. Get a beta-cheerleader. Even if your beta-cheerleader doesn't know how to do what you want to learn, not feeling alone with your project can ease that pressure/overwhelm.

4. Learn your editing (or effects) program inside and out. Get detailed about your vid concepts, but then put them aside. Focus on learning each in and out of your program. Start with familiarizing yourself with the interface and go from there. Most software publishers have tutorials posted on key features or books out that walk you through each part of the program. I'll admit -- this can seem dry and it isn't the most popular way to learn, but it can be the most useful because there's a sequence and direction to your learning already in place.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

[thingswithwings]

I'm terrible at editing, so can't help you there! But I really groove on what metatxt said about effects. When I started vidding, I thought of "effects" as some big monolithic group of things you could do, probably using magic, that were different from the vidding process. But really all effects are is small tools that alter the image in a small way. To make a big effect, you pile up a bunch of small tools. The thing is to learn how to use those small tools. So, figure out how to play a clip in reverse, speed it up, and slow it down; learn how to fade to black (or to any colour!), learn how to change the image's position, size, or orientation (how to flip it from left to right, or top to bottom), how to crop an image, how to make the edges fuzzy, how to change the colour of an image, etc etc etc. Each of those is relatively easy to learn to do, and when you know how to do all of that (and more!) you can put them together to do things.

Example: in one vid I made (Here It Goes Back Again, my Back to the Future vid), I wanted to zoom out from one scene until it looked like other characters were viewing the scene through a window (so, I had to use my scene to replace what the characters originally viewed through the window). I did this by changing the scale (size of the image), cropping the edges of the clips, making the edges of one image blend into the edges of another, and changing the rotation of the image. All very simple tools, but kind of a cool effect. Anyway, I'm not great at effects in particular, but this is how I've learned what I've learned: by learning how to use a bunch of simple tools to create a complex effect.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

[ghost_lingering]

One way to get around revising your draft without losing what you already have, is to save multiple versions of your project file. That way if you HATE the changes you made you can always go back to a previous version.

There have been times when I know that a vid could be worked on for longer but I call it done anyway; vidding, for me, isn't about perfection but rather about producing something in a positive, low-risk, low-pressure way. So I think the "doneness" of a vid is partially based on what you're looking for in making the vid. But this is another place where having a beta can be a great idea, because they can give you a second opinion when you've lost perspective.

Googling for tutorials is a great way to learn how to do things -- I do it all the time. And watching what other people do -- not just vidders, but filmmakers, other video remixers, etc -- can be a huge inspiration in terms of credits & styles.